Intel Quietly Demos New Digital Asset Exchange

Intel has unveiled a new proof-of-concept tied to its Sawtooth Lake distributed ledger project.

The latest prototype from the tech giant is a marketplace for the exchange of digital assets, a demo version of which has been posted on the Intel website. The release follows similar demos focused on bond trading and tracking seafood as it moves through the supply chain.

Sawtooth Lake was first unveiled in April 2016 as part of the Linux Foundation-led Hyperledger blockchain project.

How it looks:

As the screenshot above shows, the Sawtooth Lake-based marketplace lets you view lists of available assets. Users can also add their own – this reporter added one for ‘lembas bread’ – which can then be listed for sale or exchanged for other assets.

How we got here: Past observers may note that the marketplace isn’t the first instance in which Intel has designed a digital asset exchange, of a sort.

In February of last year, CoinDesk reported that the tech firm had developed a fantasy sports game through which assets, representing shares in sports teams, were exchanged in a marketplace setting.

The goal of the game, the company said at the time, was to accrue the most ‘mickels’ by selling shares tied to successful teams.

While there’s no clear relationship between the two projects, one of the assets listed on the new digital asset markets, ‘mickels’, is likely a reference to that earlier initiative.